The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was in town over the weekend, pushing those other bands to the side as it matched its storied musical prowess against the architectural majesty of the Elbphilharmonie, the newest of the world's elite classical music performance halls, already vaunted as a glass-paneled icon of the new Germany.

The first shall be first.

That was the operative assumption Saturday and Sunday nights, when the CSO under Riccardo Muti became the first symphony orchestra from outside Germany to perform here as part of a gala, three-week inaugural festival at Hamburg's and the nation's latest pride and joy.

The Elbphilharmonie — nicknamed Elphi — is a spectacular cultural complex that rises, like a beached supertanker sheathed in opalescent glass, 360 feet over the Elbe River, reflecting the 19th-century brick warehouses, shipping cranes and container docks of the $12 billion waterfront development zone of this city of 1.7 million people, Germany's second-largest.

Just because the musicians of the Chicago Symphony are being showcased in such architectural splendor during their two-week, five-nation tour route doesn't seem to be turning their heads, however.

The same "elegant symphonic juggernaut" (as one member of the German musical press called them), whose supercharged corporate mettle Orchestra Hall audiences often take for granted, was in exemplary form for its sold-out performances here and for the tour kickoff Friday at the equally striking Philharmonie de Paris.

Indeed, the same world-class musical professionalism one heard in Paris' futuristic concert facility marked the CSO's debut at the Elphi, where tickets topped out at $195. The sophisticated Hamburg audience, which hears nothing comparable on a night-to-night basis from its three resident orchestras, registered its approval with standing ovations both nights.

In animated yet superbly focused form, Muti flashed winks at his musicians during each performance. He also wagged a mock-disapproving finger at an audience member for catching the post-concert clamor on her cellphone camera. You can be sure the maestro enjoyed the moment.

You normally think of music as something conjured by musicians inside a concert hall. The Elbphilharmonie is architectural music on the outside, as sturdy and stirring and timeless as another iconic German work of art, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Its main classical music room, the Grand Hall, is suspended within an 18-story glass-and-steel box perched atop an eight-story reconverted cocoa and coffee warehouse. The contrast between the soaring top and sturdy foundation gives the structure much of its visual dynamism. Crowned with a crested, white-tiled roof meant to resemble undulating waves (think Berlin Philharmonie), the structure also houses a modular, 500-seat chamber hall, rehearsal rooms, a hotel with 244 beds and luxury apartments.

The new part of the structure is separated from the base by an observation deck affording a panoramic view of the harbor front and the North Sea. The deck is accessible without charge and has attracted more than 600,000 visitors since the complex opened in November, said Tom R. Schulz, the Elbphilharmonie's press chief, during a media tour of the facility.

Chicago's city fathers haven't thought this big since the golden era of Daniel Burnham. But, then, today's civic leaders would think twice about undertaking anything as extravagant. The Elphi came in at roughly $843 million (about $500 million more than originally budgeted), with most of the cost borne by the city. The opening came nearly a decade after construction began, six years following the scheduled completion date.

The biggest question is how successfully the people administering the mega-facility will make the dramatic new culture complex feel relevant to all sectors of the city. The $404 million Paris Philharmonie (which opened in 2015) faces the same challenge.

Acoustically speaking, the Elphi’s Great Hall, where no seat is farther than 100 feet from the conductor, struck me as a very fine, if not a great, room for the making and hearing of symphonic music. Its curving beige-and-cream walls are covered with an acoustical honeycomb of pocked plaster paneling that made the sound feel clear, direct and remarkably intimate from the two vantage points I had on Saturday and Sunday. The sound design for the Elbphilharmonie is by the noted Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota.

Colleagues seated elsewhere found the mighty fortes of Muti's Strauss "Don Juan" and Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony overbearing, even blasty. Principal tuba Gene Pokorny told me he had to contend with odd echoes coming off the semicircular stage enclosure. "The sound is every tuba player's dream," he quipped. "You play a note and, one second later, you hear it again!"

Certainly it's a drier, more focused sound than the more reverberant "surround" acoustics of the Paris hall. There, perhaps prompted by the "wet" acoustics and confidence in his players' ability to adjust instantaneously, Muti lingered lovingly over certain sections of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." The Ravel orchestration positively glowed, more so than in Hamburg.

On the other hand, Paul Hindemith's Concert Music for Strings and Brass — composed by a German for the Boston Symphony Orchestra ("You see," Muti told me, "we do play American music!") — sounded like it was made for the more analytical acoustics of the new Hamburg hall.

I also enjoyed how Elgar's "In the South" (Alassio)" sounded there. Although Muti mistook Italianate vigor for British nobility of expression, I welcomed the opportunity to feel light and air between the strands of Elgar's rich scoring.

The Parisian public — a much more casually dressed crowd than their starchier, more conservative German counterparts — got to hear only one of the Verdi opera overtures Muti had prepared as tour encores: the prelude to "I Vespri Siciliani." Hamburg got both "Vespri" and "Nabucco."

These were the best performances of the tour thus far. As if gearing up for his long-awaited return to Milan's La Scala with the CSO this Friday and Saturday, the world's reigning Verdi maestro made the overtures leap from page to players to waiting ears. Muti beamed, clearly enjoying the musicians' and the audience's enjoyment of him. No surprise that the hall erupted in a prolonged roar of delight.

In his brief remarks to the public after each program here, Muti refrained from commenting on the inaugural occasion, confining his remarks to Verdi. Could it have been fallout from when Muti took issue with the production concept of director Pierre Audi's staging of Verdi's “Attila” that Muti conducted at the Metropolital opera in 2010? The production had designs by the same team — the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron — that designed the Elbphilharmonie.

It was left to other Chicagoans to thank the hosts, though it was only in private.

"To be the first visiting orchestra to play this spectacular hall is a considerable honor for all of Chicago," Herbert Quelle, the Chicago-based consul general of Germany, told me as he queued up to greet Muti after Saturday's concert. (The maestro dutifully autographed copies of the latest Muti/CSO recording at a table set up in one of the spacious foyers after the Sunday performance.)

At a VIP reception attended by a dozen or so CSO members Saturday, one of the presenters expressed the prevailing hope of cultural Hamburg most succinctly. "Please stay!" he implored the musicians.

If anybody should ever ask me what I would build as the ideal modern facility for symphonic music in Chicago, I would create a structure that combines the architectural grace and harmonious majesty of Hamburg's new hall with the warm, malleable acoustics of the less architecturally inviting Philharmonie de Paris. Right now I'm trying to visualize what a Chicago version of the Elphi would look like overlooking the Chicago River.

The Chicago Symphony road show continued earlier this week with a two-night debut in Aalborg, Denmark. On Wednesday the orchestra was to move on to Milan for its first performances at La Scala since 1981. Thus far the weather — nippy, gray and windy, but far more tolerable than what Chicagoans endure this month — has cooperated beautifully.

With great halls and great acoustics and great audiences like this, the Chicago Symphony musicians may just want to take up the presenters' imperative and remain on the Continent.